Research & Expertise – News

University students' economic literacy depends not only on their field of study but also on their interest in economics, the learning environment, and family financial practices. For example, students who received pocket money irregularly tend to perform better on economic literacy tests than their peers who received financial support on a regular basis. These findings come from a study conducted by HSE University involving more than 1,100 students from five Russian universities. The findings have been published in Cakrawala Pendidikan.

Anastasia Antsygina, Assistant Professor at HSE University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences, has developed a prize distribution model that maximises competitor engagement. She proposed revising the traditional ‘winner-takes-all’ approach and, in certain cases, offering a small reward even to those who have lost. According to her, this could increase participant motivation and make the competition more intense. The findings of her research were published in the Economic Theory journal.

How can items be allocated among participants so that no one feels short-changed? Alexander Karpov, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, and his Singaporean colleague, Prof. Warut Suksompong, set out to find a mathematical answer to this question. In this interview, they discuss how a model of rational preferences is constructed, why one cannot rely on a simple sum of values, and where an algorithm that asks a minimal number of questions can be useful.

Alexander Tarasov is the Head of the Department of Theoretical Economics at the Faculty of Economic Sciences (FES) and Leading Research Fellow at the Centre for Market Studies and Spatial Economics at HSE University-St Petersburg. In his interview, Alexander talks about the appeal of academia, the challenges that await graduate students, and his research into the impact of railroads on economic growth, affirmative action in university admissions, and much more.

The monograph Russian and Western Economic Thought has been published under the editorship of the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences and the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart (Germany). Written by a selection of respected experts, the monograph examines the interrelations and mutual influence of Russian and Western economic thinking. The book is edited by Prof. Vladimir Avtonomov, HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, and Prof. Harald Hagemann, the University of Hohenheim.

Economists from HSE University and the Vienna University of Economics and Business have figured out why, all else equal, trading goods across borders can be more expensive than trading the same goods within state borders. They argue that one of the reasons is underdeveloped infrastructure in border regions. Their study was published in the Journal of Urban Economics.

The HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences invites you to guess the Nobel Prize winners in economics.

In a webinar for the Faculty of Economic Sciences, Professor Konstantin Sonin talked about the impact of income, social status and political beliefs on mask-wearing compliance, social distancing and willingness to get vaccinated.

Experts believe that increasing productivity, diversifying the economy, as well as developing human capital and expanding non-resource exports will help boost Russia's economic growth. But the state policy has to be smart. This was discussed at a series of round tables and expert discussions on the topic of productivity at the XXII April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development, organised by HSE University and Sberbank.

During the pandemic, countries have endeavoured to protect their citizens without hurting their economies with excessive restrictions. At the seminar ‘Living with Covid-19: Optimal Lockdown Policies’, Hubert Kempf, academic supervisor of HSE University’s International Laboratory for Macroeconomic Analysis, presented a mathematical model that can be used to calculate the optimal level of restrictions.